Covenant Hospital Plain view might be 1,800 miles away from Seattle Grace Hospital, fictional home of ABC TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” but the two hospital are a whole lot closer today with the arrival of Plainview’s first two medical residents.

Beginning today, Plainview will be home for the next two years for Drs. Shahroz Kidwai and Monte Swanson, as they continue their medical training as second- and third-year residents. They will be joined in July 2013 with two more second-year residents, Drs. Owayande Stephen Izeiyamu and Khanya Cualoping. Two more medical residents will be arriving for their own two-year stint in July 2014.

“It’s a rural tract program,” explained Alan N. King, hospital CEO. “They do their first 12 months in Lubbock, being involved in different areas that they might not see here — cardiac and higher-end treatments, such as in critical care. Then they come here for at least 20 months of their last 24 months. During that time they will be involved in all phases of the practice of rural family medicine.”

The medical residents will be working with, and training under, local physicians, King explained, as they experience first-hand the specific medical needs of a rural area.

“It’s really great that they will be meeting and working with so many dedicated individuals who are focused on serving the needs of this area,” King said, referring to the local medical community.”

While the participating medical residents received their medical degrees through a wide spectrum of universities, the local medical residency program is being coordinated through Texas Tech’s School of Medicine.

“Covenant Plainview was selected for this program because we are so much more diverse than your normal rural hospital,” King said. “These medical residents will be exposed to a much larger variety of procedures and treatments than in most rural hospital settings. And this residency program truly is a great partnership with our physicians, who have all committed to participate and help, and it is a model program throughout the state.”

The first four medical residents coming to Plainview are diverse indeed, receiving their medical degrees from schools in the Caribbean, Philippines, Nigeria and Texas.

“One of our first medical residents, Dr. Monte Swanson, already has spent six weeks in Plainview, working in a rural health clinic,” King said. A graduate of the medical school at Texas Tech, Swanson “really wanted to get back here, and continue his education in this area,” King said. “It’s really like we won the lottery with this entire program.”

While Swanson is a graduate of the Texas Tech University Health Science Center’s School of Medicine, Dr. Shahroz Kidwai received his medical degree from Ross University, a highly-regarded school in the Caribbean nation of Dominica.

Dr. Osayande Stephen Izeiyamu, who will do his residency in Plainview during 2013-14, received his degree from Abia State University in Nigeria. Joining him during that two-year period will be Dr. Khanya Cualoping, who received her medical degree from the University of the East in Manila, Philippines.

Traditionally, first-year residents are called interns. After their third year of residency, many doctors will take their board exam, unless they are going into a field that requires additional specialized training such as surgery, obstetrics, dermatology, etc.

Once they are board certified, some doctors go on to set up their own private practice.

The second- and third-year medical residents in Plainview will be working under a fairly rigid agenda set up in partnership with Texas Tech.

“Each will be going through so many hours of rotations in a variety of areas, such as obstetrics and family medicine,” King said. “It’s a highly-structured program that fulfills the requirements of a quality medical residency program.”

An integral part of the program is the local medical community.

“We really proud of our local doctors,” King said. “They all have signed up to become associate professors at Texas Tech, and they have carved out a lot of their own time for enhancing the future of health care in Plainview, and the future of health care for the entire region.”

While the program is a real plus for Covenant Hospital Plainview, King said it has the potential for having a positive impact for all hospitals in the region.

“This opens the door not only for us, but for Dimmitt, Tulia, Lockney, Hereford and other rural hospitals in the region,” he said. “We have people being trained here in a rural setting, and these people have made a conscious decision to begin their career in Rural America. This is a unique set of young men and women who plan to address health care in rural American, and an obvious group for us and other hospitals to recruiting from.”

In years past, medical residents were often required to work long hours with little sleep. King said that’s no longer the case.

“Everyone will be rigidly logged and monitored, and they won’t be burning the candle on both ends like interns and residents were forced to in the past,” he said.

“They won’t have an easy schedule, but it’s far less demanding than in the past.”

Covenant Hospital Plain view already has made arrangements for housing the physicians.

“We have leased condos as their living quarters,” he said. “So, they all will be local residents.”